


"I Want You to Love Me."

by bardsley



Category: The Booth at the End
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 12:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8890144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bardsley/pseuds/bardsley
Summary: Doris and the Man finish their conversation.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vibishan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibishan/gifts).



> For Yuletide 2016 challenge. Many thank to my reliable and quick editor, DarkAngelAzrael.

Even after all this time, he wasn't used to it, the feeling of his heart speeding up. He wasn't used to it and he still didn't like it. His heart was a part of him that he could not control, affecting him in ways he didn't always like. He didn't let it show in his face. That he could control. He smiled.

 

“By love you mean...?”

 

“Love,” Doris repeated.

 

“I heard you. But what do you mean when you say that?” he snapped.

 

The diner was mostly empty. He watched the waitress in her pale pink uniform retreat into the kitchen. He spared a moment to wonder what this looked like to her -- the quietly tense conversation. A romantic quarrel? It wasn't even entirely the wrong idea.

 

Doris lowered her voice even though there was no one around to hear. “All the people that you talk to every day, all the clients that come to you with their dreams and their problems, and you still don't know what love means?” Doris asked.

 

“I don't know what it means to you,” he answered, gesturing back at Doris.

 

Doris stared at him. She often stared at him, he noticed. “It's a feeling,” Doris said slowly. “Trusting someone else. Caring about them. Looking forward to seeing them.” She smiled at him. She laughed softly, as if at a joke they shared. “It’s a trap people set for themselves to get them through the day.”

 

He leaned back against the booth. The vinyl fabric made a creaking sound. “You're trying to stop me,” he said. He sounded calm. He could take pride in that. He didn't.

 

“That's not what I asked for,” Doris replied.

 

“Yes, it is,” he insisted. “Loving you means loving Them. And I can't do this -- be this -- and love Them.”

 

Doris stared back at him. He could hear the traffic outside and the too-quick beating of his heart. “What does it say about what you’re doing that you believe that?” she asked.

 

“What does it say about what you're doing that you are using love as a weapon to get what you want?”

 

“That sounds human, doesn't it?” Doris mused. She rested her hand on the tabletop, reaching toward him. “Using love to get what you want.” She paused as if giving him a chance to answer her. He didn't. She continued. “But that is not what this is.”

 

“What is this?”

 

He watched Doris’s expression change little by little. He's seen this before, the look on the face of people who hadn't thought through their desires being forced to think about them so that they could articulate them clearly. He never expected to see the look on _her_ face.

 

“I’ve watched you with them,” Doris said. “You’ve changed. They’ve changed you.”

 

He nodded. “You said that before. You said you wanted to understand. But it isn’t understanding that you’re asking for.”

 

“No, I think I understand enough.”

 

He peered at her. “How do you know when you understand enough?”

 

“Because I’ve seen enough to know that I like it. That I want to be someone that you love. Someone worthy of your love,” she said. And he heard it -- that tone that meant what she said was as much a revelation to her as to him.

 

“But that's not what you asked for,” he argued, not even sure himself if he was just stalling. “Being loved and being worthy of love aren't the same thing.”

 

“Aren't they?” Doris asked. Her tone suggested she didn't believe him. “Well, then, I want both. It's better to be specific, isn't it?”

 

He swallowed. He couldn't think of anything to say that would not obviously be stalling, so he said nothing. Doris watched him patiently. His fingers caressed the worn brown cover of the book before he opened it. He read. He laughed.

 

“It isn't me you want at all,” he said. He smiled down at the book, and not at her. He traced his fingertip down the page. “You want the book.”

 

“I know that isn't what is written there,” Doris said, her voice tight.

 

“That isn't what is written there,” he agreed. “What is written is that in order to get what you want you have to find a book, a special book that helps people get what they want. You have to use that book and help those people for a period of no less than two seasons.”

 

He watched Doris's eyes drop to the book.

 

“Yes,” he said. Doris’s eyes jump back to him. “This was very hard to get. And I don't plan on giving it up.”

 

“What about a loan?”

 

“No.”

 

“Are there others?”

 

“I don't answer questions like that,” he said. “I don't have to.”

 

“You could,” Doris coaxed, leaning forward. “You could help. You have helped people before.”

 

He closed the book. “I won’t. Not with this.”

 

“If I take the book --”

 

“You won't,” he growled.

 

Doris drew back her hand. She searched his face with her eyes. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him, especially when she smiled. “I won't.”

 

He tilted his head. He wasn't about to be taken in by her abrupt surrender. “You're giving up?”

 

“No sir,” Doris answered. Her tone was playful. “I told you before, I have waited for love a long time. I am not giving up now.”

 

“But --”

 

“I am giving up our deal,” Doris sighed.

 

He stared at her as if looking for something in her face that might give away reasons for her uncharacteristic surrender.

 

Doris shrugged casually. “There is always more than one solution.”

 

The waitress stepped out of the kitchen. She began stacking the stools at the counter, a quiet but not subtle sign that the diner would be closing soon.

 

“Let me come home with you tonight,” Doris suggested, her voice soft.

 

“No.”

 

“You don't sleep well anyway. I won't be bothering you,” Doris said. “Let me come home with you.”

 

He grinned at the incongruity of the two statements together, aware that the two taken together didn't quite add up. “If I say no, will you call Them?”

 

“No,” Doris answered. “I can't anymore than you can.”

 

“But you said --”

 

“I lied.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Let me come home with you and I'll tell you,” Doris said calmly, or at least, she sounded calm.

 

The waitress's slow footsteps on the tile floor announced her arrival. “Sorry folks, closing time,” the waitress said.

 

Doris didn't so much as blink. The man nodded and waved the waitress off. She retreated to the register.

 

“Yes,” he heard himself say.

 

Doris's eyes smiled. She offered him her hand. He tucked the book beneath the arm furthest from Doris and he took her hand. It wasn't a new sensation. It wasn't unusual for a client to want to shake his hand, but this was different. It seemed possible that in time he might even like it.


End file.
